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  1. karl Minister of Fire

    Sorry but China has hundreds of engineers reading every patent filed in the U.S. They will see that crystal, copy it, and have it in production before the kid at MIT gets a pat on the back.
    #26

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  2. mbcijim Member

    joined: Mar 10, 2008
    419 posts
    Schuylkill County, Pa
    This is a problem in every industry, not just alternative energy.

    Medium sized companies 8-9 figure top line sells to private equity. Private equity buys them out but puts major loans on the company books. I'll use the pipe industry as an example that I just saw. $125 million in sales, bought the company for $75 million, but borrowed $125 million. $75 million went to the original owners, $50 million went to the private equity buyers. The guys in private equity just know how to borrow money. You think the sellers would have just borrowed the $125 million in the first place? Yep, if they knew how!

    3 years later sales are down, declare bankruptcy, loan is wiped off the books, the banker becomes the owner, and the private equity company still gets paid to manage the company.

    This is typical for 75% of all companies of that size today. I see their books all the time.
  3. webbie Administrator

    joined: Nov 17, 2005
    10,918 posts
    Western Mass.
    I think this is somewhat accurate....production capability is so vast today that there is no need for hundreds or thousands of companies. The winners will not always be the best - some of it is luck. Look at VHS, much worse tech than BetaMax..but it won.

    Production today is amazing. Look at Apple - this one company, if it came to it, could probably supply 100% of the worlds smart phones and touch pads. The same goes for a lot of other things - Intel could supply most of the computer chips for Planet Earth.

    Who knows? Things are changing too fast for any of us to do much more than hang on.

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